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4 THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN AND NEWS. SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1907. “BEHOLD THE MAN!” “Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!” —JOHN xix :5 By REV. RICHARD ORME FLINN, Pastor North Avenue FVesbyterian Church , EHOLD the man!** Thu* spake Pilate a* he led forth this Person whom he had beaten and mocked and outraged. With a diadem of twisted thorns pressed down upon His brow until the blood drops reddened it; with a dis carded robe thrown over his should er in mock dignity. In scornful token of royalty; with ^Hls hands tied as n malefactor, and holding a rod that had been laid heavily upon His back; with the marks of spittle upon His face; with the red welts of cruel tor ture upon His person, He stood be held of all. But Pilate, who bade them thus be- hold, himself bad never seen the One] at whom he pointed. Of course he} looked, at Him—the fascination of the' spectacle held him; he could not turn his eye away, unwilling though It was to consider such a scene—but Pilate, did not see the man. He saw only a, man, poor, unknown, defenceless, like a stricken lamb amid a pack of howling \ wolves, a man of lowly parentage, • without Influence, power, or wealth, j And the people that heard him speak— j they did not see the man, though the eyes of all were upon Him. They saw a man—a man against whom the rulers of their race had risen as though His very existence were an Impertinence; a man against whom their leading men had risen en masse to make away with him as a traitor, as onfc who had threatened to overthrow the established order of things and embroil them with the Roman power. They Looked, and Saw. And thus blinded, both of them— S|>eaker and hearers—they looked and saw a man. but not THE man. But blind though he was, and little think ing though he did what was the Im port of his word, Pilate spake better than he knew; and, today, after the lapse of centuries which have sprink led with the dust of dissolution the proudest monuments which were reared to defy their passage, today we pause and gladly hearken ns we are bidden to “Behold the Man!” How Shall We Behold Him? But, how shall we behold Him? He Is too great for eyes like ours, rising above all others like some noble moun tain, pure, sublime, Immovable, we can not measure His immensity by any comparison. He ever excels our gate and exceeds our power to appreciate or understand. How shall we see Him? 1ft young manhood, going forth in the power and plenitude of His might, sweeping the debris of centuries before Him like the rushing of a mighty, flood? Shhll we look upon Him as after the bursting of that Roman seal He appears unto the apostles and the chosen ones? Shall we consider Him as He Is lifted from Olivet and rises through the blue? Or flball we consider Him today as He sits at Clod's right hand? No. I*et us do aa Pilate bids, as He stands there, despised, disowned, derided. Let us behold the Man! A Crown That Cost. Look at Him! He has a crown upon His head—the diadem of a monarch. But see! The brow Is red. incarnadined by the pressure of the thorn upon His brow. He wears a crown—yes. a crown that cost Him blood—the only crown that the multitudes of earth will ever recognize os being supreme, and that thorn crown that cost the agony of Him who wore It is the only diadetn before which all others shall be cast. Queen Victoria looked upon Him once, and this she said: “f would that 1 "could live until the Lord returns." 1 “Whv?” was the question In response. “Oh.” she said, “because today 1 sit upon the throne of an emplfe and wear the dfsdern of ‘the India* and of the British Isles, and 1 would like, oh. 1 would like to be living when He comes again, that I might take this dlndetn and cast It before the feet of Him who wore the crown of thorna.” Look again! He holds a scenter In His hand. What is It? A Roman Ilctnr'S rod. It. too. Is reddened by Ills blood. It has left Its marks upon His back before He held It In His hand. But ah! It Is. the only scepter that can sway the spheres. That scepter which He first Himself hath felt Is the only one that we allow now to be lifted over REV. RICHARD QRME FLINN, us. Look again! He wears a robe. Where did He get It? Some man has gladly discarded It. It belonged to another, and now He wears It aa Ills own. Thank Qod for that. For that robe Ho wears Is emblematic of the robe which He In glory wears. The robe Is worn and torn, marred by sins committed by another; and your robe, polluted. He puts on, and you may wear His robe Instead. Yes, Pilate, we thank the* for thy word. Today we will “Behold THE Man.” Christ the Universal Hero. No matter how "He may have stood then. Christ stands before theTVorld to day the universal hero. So nation cele- hrates the groat ones of their rivals. England glories In her Nelson, but hon ors not Napoleon. France remembers with pride her Imperial leader, but has scant wordH of praise for Bismarck. Germany glories In her Goethe and gives but second place to the poets of our own land and the world at large. But Christ! reigns In Ragland, In I'Yance and Germany alike. In the Is lands of the sea and In the nations of Asia and of Africa. Christ Is the uni versal hero. Not only Is He reverenced by all—but, as one has remarked, “All nations claim Him as their own. Men of all nations speak of Moses as a He brew, Socrates as an Athenian, Con fucius as a Chinaman, Buddha as a Hindu, Mahomet as an Arab, Luther as a German, not only In blood but In spirit; but Jesus belongs to the Afri can as He does to the American; He Is loved by the Chinese as He Is by the Choctaw Indian. To the Welsh Christ seems to have been a Welshman; to the Arab Christ seems to have been an Arabian. No matter what a man's na tionality, he feels at home with Jesus Christ” Not only docs Christ over-reach the national barriers, but, greater stm. He breaks down all the partitions which divide between the classes of society. The rich man finds In Him the only one that adequately understands him as he bears the burden of the day, and, as true to his trust he taken his place a leader of affairs. And the pauper with scarcely a cent for a crust finds In Christ the one alone who can under stand and sympathize with him. We think of Him not as rich, not as poor, not as a laborer—though He was—not as a king—though He was that—but as himself—THE man, embracing ull that is noblest In manhood, showing and glorifying all that Is worthiest of the name. At What Shall We Look? In beholding Him let us understand that we are not to look at His hands alone, but at Himself. When we look at Jesus we do not look at what He did, but at what He was—at Himself. He excelled all that He accomplished. We think of Bhakespeare as a writer, of Caesar as a military leader, of Mo-, hornet ns a great organizer of those nomadic Arabic tribes Jnto a mighty theological bf»dy, swayed by u concept, united by an Idea; but we think of Jesus Christ as Himself, above and greater than what He did. As one has said, “He wrote no poem, no essay, no song. In a world where other moral teachers hove committed their ethical systems to books He left not one single written sermon or oration. He organ ized no church, He developed no eccle siastical system.” But though He did not this, He showed us Himself, and in showing Himself revealed God to man; and though Ke wrote no book, the pensVtf the mightiest men of all the ages have vied each with the other to write for Him; the brushes of the most divinely gifted with vain endeavors have sought to portray the glory and nobility of His visage. Each act of His life has been made permanent as It bos been conceived und depicted by some great limner, and the choicest marbles of the hills huve been employ ed to fix In noble and enduring form some of the Impressive marvels of His thought. “Architecture.” as one has said, “struggles to build temples suita ble for His worship; schools, colleges, and all systems of education are so ciety's attempts to realize His estimate of the worth and dignity of childhood.” And It was Gladstone who declared that “Government Is but the transla tion of the teachings of Christ Into hu man laws and Institutions.” Another has written thus: “You could track Abraham by his altars; Ghengls Khan could be traced by his pyramids of hu man skulls; the Duke of Alva by the ashes of fire In which he burned mar tyrs; but Jesus Christ you must trace by the homes He hath brightened, the hearts He huth cleansed.'' It was Newell Dwight mills who said: “When we think of Jesus Christ moving forward over the centuries and the continents like an advancing sum mer sowing all lands with light, adorn ing all nations with homes ami cities and civilization, pride becomes Instinc tive and shame Is a feeling Impossible for right-minded men;” and he con tinues: “Looking backward we see the centuries sloping toward Bethlehem’s hill, and all the streams of civilization flowing down therefrom.” More Than a Hero, Divine. Napoleon In hla early hours did not behold THE man as today we seek to do; his eye was fixed on fame; his glance swept over Europe and down into Asia and into Africa, and his in satiate thirst for glory made him un thinking and unwijling thus to pause and see. But on the Isle of St. Helena, dethroned, exiled, and broken, he look ed and beheld THE man, and turning one day to General Bertrand he said: “I know men, and I tell you that Jesus is not a mere man. Between Him and whosoever else in all the world there an* no possible terms of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Chailemagne and myself founded empires, but upon what diil we rest the success of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ alone found ed His empire upon love and at this hour millions * of men would die for Him.” And as Jean Paul beheld Him he likewise witnessed to the divine power of Christ: “The Nazarene hath !ift<*d the gates of empire off their hinges and turn* '] the streams of the centuries out of their channels.” What Vision of Christ Will Do, But what will be accomplished when we behold THE man? What will the vision do for us? First, It will tear away the mask from sin. Sin comes to us so beautifully garbed, with such fascination that unless we have the clear, strong, noble face of Christ to light us and by* contrast expose sin's hideousness we may fall and fall be fore It Not long ago a robber broke Into a residence In the East. The house was unoccupied; lie had plenty of leisure: and he collected his plunder from all the rooms and brought It into the dining room, there to select from it what he wonted. In that dining room was a splendid marble bust called "Ecce Homo”—“Behold the Man!”—by Guido. When the owners of the house returned and found the desolation wrought by this man they noticed that the face of Christ bore the black marks of the robber's Angers, and that that face was turned to the wall. The man could not stand even the sight- less eyes of a marble Christ as he gave himself up to plunder. And, oh man, when we look at Him, sin In its most alluring' form appears even ns the tawdry decorations of a pageant seen In the sunlight. Tho Transforming Power. On the way to Damascus one day. a man caught a vision of Christ. His whole heart filled with hatred, his whole life devoted to a violent cause, he came suddenly, unexpectedly, face to face with Christ. The glory that broke above the brightness of the noonday blinded him; he ceased to see as he caught the vision, but it changed a life. Instead of hatred, after that there welled within him the bound less compassion and yearning for his brother man which enabled Paul to write that wonderful thirteenth chap ter of Corinthians—that epic of love. One day a man, a clear, cold, logical, business man who had known Him. heard from others whom he knew and believed concerning Him, but he would not believe them then. "Unless I see the nail prints In His hands, unless I thrust this band Into the spear wound In His side, I will not believe.” And Christ appeared, and sail: “Thom as!” He looked! He saw! The Mas ter said:, “Reach hither thy finger and put it In the prints In My hands, and thrust forth thine hand Into the wound in My side." “Nay, Lord! I will not! I need not! I believe! My Lord, and my God!” He yaw, and he was saved from doubt. A woman, broken-hearted, her soul crushed within her, the woman who but a short t|me before h%d broken her most precious treasure, anointing Him whonf she adored, came Into the garden one morning when the day was gray to pay the last sweet tributes of a loving woman to what was left to her of her Lord. 8he found the empty sepulchre and she saw a man, and, looking with tear-dimmed eye she said: “Oh, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.” The Idea of this weak woman carrying ofT a corpse! -But love known no Im possibility. He spoke but a word "Mary!” and. turning, she looked, and as she looked, she cried, “Rabbonl!”— “My Master!” Grl*f was assuaged, winter was forgot, and the glory of the fullblown spring in a moment filled her soul with beauty and ytth Joy. She looked and sorrow tied. } It was ever thus. To Look is to Live. In London, one cold wintry day, when the snow lay heavy, a youth trudged down an unfamiliar street and turned into an unfamiliar house, a lit tle unpretentious Methodist chapel, a house belonging to the poor. The min ister was absent that day, but a sim ple man arose and spoke to the HUJe handful gathered, and hla word was this: “Look! Don't you see Him hang ing on the tree? He Is hanging there for you! Look! Don’t you see Him sweating those great drops of blood os He prays In the garden? He is sweating those for yon? Look! He is rising! Rising for you! See! He has ascended! Ascended for you! Look again! He Is at God's right hand! He is there for you interceding! Look, young man!* And he pointed back under the gallery. “Look! Look!” And the young man looked. For weeks, for months, lie had been burdened with a sense of sJn, and nothing gave him rest, but he looked, and saw, and was saved. It was Spurgeon, and because he saw he made all England see, and there are those In glory now who are there because he looked, and as he pointed them the way they looked, and saw and lived. Christ Reflected in a Man. Some time ago In England a woman infidel addressed a crowd of working men In a northern English city, at tempting to prove that Christ is a myth. When she finished speaking a man got up at the other end of tho room and said: “My friends, you know me; I have I'J/ed among you for twen ty-five years. Twenty-five years ago I was a drunken brute, a wife-beating rascal; but Jesus of Nazereth met mo and opened my eyes, and I saw that I was a sinner, and He forgave me. You know what a change took place in me then, and you know what kind of a man 1 have been since then. Perhaps the lady will be kind enough to explain —me,” and down he sat The lady did not attempt to explain him. She did not finish the Intended course of lectures. She had her arguments well arranged, but for this awkward fact of a Chris tian’s experience she was not prepared. It completely upset her plans because this man had beheld Him, and what had happened she could not explain away. Man, if there Is In a look at Jesus Christ a power for parity, a power to transform and save the hojH*less, and to give them peace, then let us behold Him. Yes, let us behold Him, not glancing at-him merely with the super ficial blindness of Pilate and the mob, but behold Him—see Him as He Is, SO that being saved from that which is evil and transformed Into that which Is good we may bo energized to that which Is best. Makes Heroes of Men. ' In that terrible Iroquois Theater fire a young man named Will McLaughlin, a senior In Ohio University, saved a score or more of lives, but they cost him hla own. When asked how he did It, and why he did not cease before it was the means of his destruction, this was his answer: “I knew I was fol lowing Christ, and I couldn't do other wise." Is there any look on earth that so spurs men, that so ennobles them, that so glorifies the human and lifts It toward God as the look at Christ? Hit Captain"* Voice. Rome years ago, In a university dor mitory, a great fire broke out. The gentleman who tells the story says he was passing down the street, when In a moment he heard the thunder of ap proaching fire engines and the rattle of hook and ladder trucks. In less than a minute a stream of water was thrown upon the burning structure, but it was soon evident that the building was doomed. The flames leaped from cel lar to garret and became a roaring fur nace. At this moment a cry broke from the crowd. In the top story, at one of the windows, appeared a young man, a member of the baseball team. He came to the window and looked out, but all beneath was smoke and flame; his gaze could not penetrate It, and he started back. The chief of the fire department cried out to him to jump—ladders would nor reach him, and they stretched the net. He looked again; nothing but Impenetrable flams and smoke beneath him, and Are be hind him rutting off his escape, and he stood his ground. Again the chief call ed to him, “Jump!” but he dared not move. , Just then the captain of the ball team cried out, “Bill, you're gone If you stay there. Jump, man, jump!” He was accustomed to being command ed by that man. He believed in his captain. He didn't understand how It meant anything but death to leap, but when his captain ordered him to leap he Instinctively obeyed, and plunged, and struck the net, and bounced like a ball. They caught him, and the boys took him on their shoulders, crying out, “He's safe! Bill Wssafe!” Yes, thank God! saved because he dared believe a man and swing out through the dark and flame into space because he bade him. Oh, soul, hear me! You have tar ried too long. Behold THE man that bids you, and then In God's name leap! It Is death to stand where you are! Christ says It Is life to leap. Look! Leap! Live! Awnings For stores. Offices. Residences, Public BulldlnitB.etc., manu factured and put up. AU work guaranteed Lowest prices. Phone or write (or estimates. J. M HIGH GO. Atlanta, Ga. on E ose* iMH. rmi aGSS